New Congress President soon: Rahul tells party workers

Amid the mass resignation drama in the Congress, Rahul Gandhi on Saturday told leaders from Maharashtra that the party would soon name his successor.

“You will get a new President soon,” Rahul is learnt to have told former home minister Sushilkumar Shinde during a meeting with leaders from Maharashtra to chart the strategy for the upcoming assembly elections in the state.

Shinde had urged Rahul to withdraw his resignation and continue to lead the party in challenging times, a senior leader who attended the meeting said.

Rahul refused to buy the argument given by leaders from Maharashtra who blamed the party's poor performance in the state on Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA).

Voters turned to VBA because of the inherent weakness of the Congress party, Rahul countered demanding to know from the leaders where the party fell short.

On repeated pleas by leaders to withdraw his resignation, Rahul told them he would not have quit had the Congress delivered better results in the Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, the spate of resignations continued in the Congress with Farmers' cell chief Nana Patole also quitting his post and dissolving the national committee of the frontal organisation.

A representative of the 150 odd leaders who had quit party post met AICC General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal, who refused to accept their resignations.

At the party briefing, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera dubbed the mass resignations as “different ways of expressing their request” to Rahul not to quit as party President.

“Everybody in the Congress party has one request to Rahul Gandhi, has one desire that Rahul Gandhi should continue as party president,” Khera said.

Khera parried queries about why several senior party leaders had not quit their posts.